The one issue running through the "job search difficulties" Forum posts

I think that this is in large part a question about experience. Everyone that does science knows and have experienced mutiple times that all kinds of things can and will go wrong when performing experiments. The people that couldnt deal with this no longer works with science.

The same goes for publications and grant applications. Everyone that has done a PhD knows the peer review process with its strengths and weaknesses and accept this as a part of their job. Again the people who cant or wont deal with these issues adapt or do something slightly different either in industry (that has at least partially other issues to deal with) or outside science.

When it comes to job search a lot of people have much less own experience and while performing experiments and the peer review process is consiered something that is looked uppn as a part of the job the process of applying for a job is being looked at as something much more personal. If you start thinking that you didnt get an offer because of the fact that you are not good enough for some reason it is easy to end up in a negative spiral that wont lead to anything good.

That's right, PG. That "negative spiral" has an epicenter here on the Forum at times, and it is sad to see people putting themselves through that. This month's "Tooling Up" is about resilience, and I hope that it will help people see that the process is just a part of the job of being in a science career.

Dave

I agree with PG 100%. I have seen a similar situation with salespeople - if they begin to take the rejection personally, they get into a failure cycle. When you are rejected for a position, it can be for a myriad of reasons, such as:

- they had an internal candidate who was favored for the position

- they found a candidate whose skill set was closer to what they needed

- they decided not to fill the position (often happens due to budget shortfalls)

- the direction of the company changed

- etc., etc.

The bottom line is to not take it personally. They are not rejecting you because of who you are, they are rejecting the fact that you are not the best match for their needs.

Dick

Job interviewing is an area where you have a HUGE amount of control. You can study the interpersonal dynamics of interviews, read all about "common" interview questions and learn how to deal with the behavioral interview style. You can send "thank you letters" which are enormously helpful, or you can simply do none of these things and suffer endless rejection.

So the idea that resilience will help is true ONLY if you are learning from each of these attempts. If you do the same things each time, and it isn't resulting in any change in your behavior or performance, than I guess the "numbers game" element could go on to endless numbers.

[How anyone could think that thank you letters are not important . . . that's just crazy,]

Dave Jensen

I resent a little bit if the comment about disgruntled "pseudonymous posters" is directed towards me. On the contrary! All I was doing was pointing out why academics can't apply the resilience acquired in their work directly to the job search because there is a lot of murky waters in a job search..

Will, no one was picking on you. I believe David was just mentioning that it's so easy to put up a negative-tinged post here, that it's no wonder they dominate at times. It's much harder to come back and thank or comment about one's success.

And thank you for the optimistic comments you posted at the end!

Dave Jensen, Moderator

t's almost as if they get their PhD and expect that people will be lining up to offer them positions.

Actually, I have run into people that believe that. In a prior position, I was looking for salespeople - preferably PhDs, since the subject matter was biosafety testing and it was easier to teach PhDs to sell than it was to teach advanced virology to salespeople. I received a letter and resume from a newly-minted PhD telling me that he was a perfect candidate and that he felt that the degree entitled him to an outrageous salary (won't mention what it was, but we were rolling around laughing) as well as a company car and a "generous expense account". Oddly, we did not even respond to him...

Dick

PS - If one of the readers is actually that fellow, I hope that you have since revised your job search methods.

So the big question is why are we advising our best and brightest to go into science when the labor market is in no uncertain terms screaming at them not to?

Because it's screaming at you, and not necessarily everyone else. People get into science because they are passionate about it -- and that passion shows in the process of looking for work. Similarly the other "side of the coin" shows up just as easily.

There are thousands of growth companies, in many sectors, that hire scientists. You have a particular experience in the large-company Pharma business. And yet others go to those companies, and get jobs.

No one is saying that science careers are easy. There are far more people investing in PhD's than can be absorbed by industry, government, and academia. That's a problem. But I think those job shoppers who carry a bitterness around with them are self-inflicting much of the damage.

Dave

Nate:

Great question. The short answer is that it depends upon the complexity of the item being sold and the relative familiarity of the client/buyer/customer with the subject matter. Pharmaceutical detailers are not, in my opinion, truly salespeople. Not that they are bad people (the few that I've spoken to are very nice) but they are legally constrained by the FDA as to what they are allowed to tell the MDs - thus, they tend to be more scripted than one would expect of a true salesperson. They are basically promoters, sample dispensers and order takers. MSLs exist because their interaction with a physician is considered to be more of a peer-to-peer interactions, and they can discuss drugs and issues such as side effects at a much deeper level than a detailer.

In fact, the potential for detailers to overstep their bounds is so great that I have heard that some companies are backing off the detail force and moving primarily to MSLs.

In the case of the biosafety testing company, many of our tests involved a custom component, and our contacts at the client company were typically heads of QA/QC or high-level R&D/product development executives. The sales process often involved educating the client on the latest FDA regulations (they were in flux at that time) and helping to develop a suite of testing protocols that met the client's needs. (Of course, this often meant helping the client identify what those needs were.) This process required the salespeople to understand exactly what the client was doing and why. Because of the intensely technical nature of the sale, our HR department was instructed not to bother me with resumes of pharmaceutical detailers - the vast majority of them just did not have the technical background to be successful.

When you meet with the VP of Sales, a topic of discussion will almost certainly be how you can help the sales force. Please beware of the "off-label" trap. To the best of my knowledge, MSLs are not allowed to discuss off-label uses, although there are certain ways in which both the MSLs and detailers can distribute peer-reviewed articles discussing off-label uses. Check out these two articles:

http://www.pharmexec.com/marketing-professionals-msls-label-promotion

http://site.blueskybroadcast.com/Client/RAPS/0308/pdf/Monitoring%20the%20Practice%20of%20Medicine%20and%20Off-%20Label%20Uses.pdf

There are probably a host of others that are more recent than these.

Looking at the first article, it is clear that many executives believe that MSLs can promote off-label uses and discuss them with the MDs; this does not appear to be the case, and you would be well advised to understand what MSLs can and cannot do prior to the interview, as this is likely to come up.

Hope this is useful to you. Good luck on the interview.

Dick

Great comments, Parker. I certainly agree with much of your post

Dave

Great comments, Parker. I certainly agree with much of your post

Dave